LIBER makes submission to MEPs on Open Access

On 9 September 2012, LIBER sent a formal letter to members of ITRE, the Industry, Research and Energy Committee of the European Parliament.

It is feared that MEPs may not be supportive of Open Access and Open Data approaches to the dissemination of scholarship in the forthcoming Horizon 2020 programme. The LIBER letter sets out fully LIBER’s commitment to both Open Access and Open Data. The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) had previously expressed views on the Open agenda in a letter to MEP Maria de Graça Carvalho. These proposals do not represent the institutional interests of research libraries, the universities they represent and Open Access publishers. As the Commission moves towards implementation of the Horizon 2020 Programme, it is vital that the advances made in implementing the Open agenda in Europe to date are fully reflected and enlarged in the Commission’s new funding Programme.